


Long John Fishers

by RakishAngle (afterdinnerminx)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Silk - Freeform, Underwear Theft, break-in, zane grey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 06:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11008044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterdinnerminx/pseuds/RakishAngle
Summary: Jack comes home after a long day's work only to find an intruder in his house.(Takes place before Ruddy Gore)





	Long John Fishers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sarahtoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarahtoo/gifts).



> Yeah, okay--so Long Johns are an American thing but Union Suit Fisher doesn't have that magical ring to it. Am I right?
> 
> Happy, happy, happy, happy birthday to one of the best, most wonderful fandom buddies ever.

Jack Robinson could have come home an hour ago. Or the hour before that. He could have also refrained from imbibing from the bottle he kept in the lower right-hand drawer of his desk. 

But he didn’t.

It’s Thursday night. Just one more evening to come home to a dark house, a chill from having left the flue open, the smell of toast from this morning long gone, books still strewn where he left them—the Zane Grey by the armchair in the sitting room, the Sinclair on the kitchen table, uncharacteristically splayed, pages down, splitting the spine at page fifty, the Lawrence, it’s cover marbled in shades of pink, now at his bedside after having mysteriously shown up in brown paper packaging amongst his gardening tools. He really ought to bring it to the station, logging it according to the Obscene Publications Act, though without a person to large a charge against, the process can be needlessly complex. And he really shouldn’t read the section with the wildflowers. Again, at any rate.

Keys clang heavily in Jack’s hand as he hangs them on the hook behind the door. His home doesn’t feel as quiet as usual and he’s not quite sure why he thinks this until he hears a bump upstairs.

His pulse spikes.

He’s shown up to many a scene where a break-in has happened and, thanks to a certain lady detective, has been caught in several situations in which a break-in happened while they were investigating scenes after hours. His home had never before drawn the interest of intruders. Jack reaches for the gun at his side, forgetting for the moment he had checked it back in hours ago, and when it isn’t there, he tip-toes to the mantel to grab one of two silver candlesticks, a wedding gift that remained despite the departure of the bride. It’s heavy and cold in his hand. Solid. It would make a hell of an impact.

Up the stairs he goes, carefully transferring his weight from his heel to his toe, making not one sound as he lifts the foot behind him, quietly setting it down, transferring his weight again. Always heel to toe. Always avoiding the corners of the sole, rolling the leather with the arch of his foot, tension in his calf moving through his knee, into his thigh, up to his ass, freezing when he hears the inimitable slide of his top dresser drawer, three light footsteps to the left, the telltale opening of lower door on his bedside table.

Gripping the candlestick harder and moves, once again, into the breach. The sixth step creaks, causing him to clench his jaw and curse at himself for having waited so long to repair the damn thing.

“Jack!”

Recognizing the voice that somehow manages, again and again, to sweep out the floor from underneath him, Jack closes his eyes and collapses against the wall to catch his breath. 

She’s going to be the death of him. 

“Hope you don’t mind, Jack. I’m just going to borrow something for a few days. But don’t worry; it’s not your only one.”

That woman has no sense of propriety, Jack thinks, now alarmed, and runs up the remaining stairs and into his room where the one and only Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher is standing in his newest union suit. 

And nothing else.

“Good God,” Jack gasps, eyes glued to the startlingly sheer white merino cotton whose buttons running between the neck and the crotch are only half-done, causing the top half to slouch open, falling off one shoulder—one white, beautifully freckled shoulder, reflecting the glow of a lone bedside lamp. “Ph—Miss Fisher,” he says, clearing his throat, “What are you doing in my house?”

She bestows a smile constructed entirely of charm and butterfly kisses, glancing down to smooth the fabric over the lower curve of her stomach, “You don’t mind, do you? It’s for a case.”

“What case?” Jack barks, immediately covering his lips with the row of flats between the first and second knuckles of both hands, chastising himself once again for giving the thought legitimacy. How many months ago did she name herself a sleuth, albeit with no training whatsoever (though he’s loathe to admit her long string of successes would hardly provide evidence why she shouldn’t be one)--and mere weeks ago when he admitted he was now living alone.

Come to think of it, the book showed up shortly thereafter.

And she did recently extend an invite to the theatre. Would she use Dot’s birthday as an excuse? Hardly seems likely. Not the invitation, of course—the excuse. To his knowledge, she’s never needed one before.

Now, she’s here in his house—in his bedroom, no less. And in his underwear. 

His pulse spikes again.

But her look is more business than seduction and before he knows it, she’s sliding on her slacks— _those_ slacks—over his underwear, then sitting on his bed to put on her boots. He looks away when the front panel falls open to expose a breast. One which she doesn’t move to cover until she stands. She’s been speaking this entire time. About what? Jack has no idea. All he’s heard is the din of the sea and mermaids and Shakespeare lamenting on Queens whose defects of such perfection, they render those around them breathless. 

“Jack? Are you listening?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, shaking his head to get control of his attention once again. “You were saying?”

“I’ve left something for you in exchange—yours to keep obviously,” she says with a thoughtless, remarkable guile that twists and bends him in half all while sitting casually several feet away. He's unable to speak save a small grunt when she breezes by with a, “Ta,” dancing down the stairs and out the front door with no more ceremony than the one that brought her to town in the first place.

Jack doesn’t look for her gift. Not right away. He goes downstairs to brew a cup of tea and read the same line over and over again:  _I am waiting to plunge down, to shatter and crash, roar and boom, to bury your trail, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass!_

The tea is now cold.

Having not turned the page even once, he slams the book shut in disgust and marches back upstairs to tend to the thing that’s been taking up his attention since she—his not-quite colleague—left. 

There’s nothing on his bed, under his pillows, on the shelf under his nights stand. Nothing within the pages of the ill-begotten copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover. Nothing in the bathroom, hanging on the back of the door or across the rail dedicated for ironed towels folded along a single edge. Nothing amongst his ties, his suits, his shoes.

But.

Upon opening the top bureau drawer, he sees it neatly laid. Not it. Them. A camisole and pants, flesh-toned and silk, taking up the width and breadth of visible space, hiding everything beneath. 

Of course, it does.

He stands for an eternity—afraid to touch what’s right in front of him, afraid to pick up its scent. Why would she have left this, forcing him to manhandle such intimate objects simply to get at what is his? 

Then again, why does she do anything?

Jack closes the drawer, leaving whatever’s there as is, unmolested, and considers what to do next. He could go downstairs, brew a new cup of tea, pour himself a whiskey, re-open the book he attempted to read before. Perhaps a new book. No, he knows the one. It’s not downstairs after all. It’s up here. But where? He’s just seen it. Not in the drawer but in the shelf in his bedside table. A small volume bound in blue leather. One of the first he’d purchased himself.

After removing his clothes, meticulously hanging them up so they’d be ready for the next day, he slips into bed, scandalously, wearing nothing between him and his sheets, props his pillow up behind him, and begins to read:

 

**ACT I**

**SCENE I. Alexandria. A room in CLEOPATRA's palace.**

_Enter DEMETRIUS and PHILO…_


End file.
